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Techie Buzz

Software Facebook to launch in-browser video chat powered by Skype?

Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype hasn't closed yet, but it looks like Redmond is already working behind the scenes to make the service even more ubiquitous. According to an anonymous source interviewed by TechCrunch, Facebook is going to introduce video chat next week, and that service will be powered by none other than Skype. And while the service will be browser-based, it's also said to include a desktop component. We'd say none of that sounds too fantastical -- video calls would be a logical extension of Facebook chat, and let's not forget about the $240 million Microsoft invested in the site back in 2007. What's more, Facebook sent out invites for an event next week, where Mark Zuckerberg was clear the outfit would unveil a new product from its Seattle team. That's in Microsoft's backyard, of course, the invites themselves have chat icons on 'em, and, most tellingly, that Seattle office has been snapping up engineers specializing in desktop software. All told, that adds up to a likely true story to us, but we won't know for sure until the long, beachy weekend is through.

99% Android smartphones 'leak' personal data

Almost 99.7% Android-based smartphones potentially leak user data which, if stolen, could be used to get information they store online.

According to University of Ulm researchers Bastian Konings, Jens Nickels, and Florian Schaub, Android smartphones leak login data for Google services, and could allow other access to information stored in the cloud. The researchers reportedly made the discovery while watching how Android phones handle login credentials for Web-based services.

Researchers say that the problem is in the way applications which deal with Google services request authentication tokens (several applications installed on Android phones interact with Google services through an authentication token). This token is essentially a digital ID card for that app, which once issued removes the need to keep logging in to a service for a given length of time.

Researchers discovered that many a times these tokens are sent in plain text over wireless network. This makes the tokens vulnerable to eavesdropping by criminals on Wi-fi networks.

And once stolen, criminals can pose as the particular user with the token and extract his/her personal information. As says the researchers in their blog, "The implications of this vulnerability reach from disclosure to loss of personal information for the (Google) Calendar data. For Contact information, private information of others is also affected, potentially including phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. Beyond the mere stealing of such information, an adversary could perform subtle changes without the user noticing. For example, an adversary could change the stored email address of the victim's boss or business partners hoping to receive sensitive or confidential material pertaining to their business."

Here's what Android users can do to prevent this data leak:
• Update to Android 2.3.4. Update your phone to the current Android version as soon as possible. However, depending on your phone vendor you may have to wait weeks/months before an update is available for your phone. Hopefully this will change in the future.
• Switch off automatic synchronization in the settings menu when connecting with open Wifi networks.
• The best protection at the moment is to avoid open Wifi networks at all when using affected apps.

Source: The Times of India

Latest Kinect Hack brings Angry Birds to a Kinect PC

Kinect Hackers have shown off the latest way to use Kinect on a PC with Angry Birds.

The highly popular game Angry Birds has been adapted to run on a Windows PC using Microsoft’s Kinect sensor. Utilizing the Kinemote software, Joel Griffin Dodd has created a Kinect variant of Angry Birds.

Microsoft has shipped over 8 million Kinect sensors in just 60 days on the market. Microsoft’s Kinect sensor has been a phenomenal success story for the company. The console accessory sold out across a number of retailers during the recent festive season and Microsoft smashed its own estimates of 5 million units in 2010 by shipping 8 million devices. Kinect hackers have shown off Minority Report style multitouch control and the Kinect running on Mac OS X. Microsoft said in November that it left the USB connection on the Kinect open, “by design.” Kinect hackers have recently taken the device to new heights. Videos emerged of device owners fully controlling Windows 7 and interactive prototype puppets. Kinect hacking is only at the very early stages but what’s clear is hackers are demonstrating the potential of the technology for use on PCs.

Microsoft blogger Steve Clayton revealed recently that the company is excited by the hundreds of ways people are using Kinect. “The enthusiasm we are seeing in the scientific community – specifically the research and academic communities – around potential applications of Kinect, is exciting to see” wrote Clayton. Microsoft is set to unveil driver support and an SDK in the coming months and will allow third-party developers to create titles that utilize the Kinect sensor when plugged into a PC. According to sources familiar with the plans, Microsoft will distribute the drivers under the “beta” tag. Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer,promised Kinect for PC during an interview at CES and confirmed the company would announce official support “in the right time.”

iPhone 5 & iPad 2 to be used as a Payment Device

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is planning to introduce NFC (or Near-Field Communication to you and I) in the iPhone 5 and iPad 2. NFC is a short-range wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices.

An example of a device that NFC is capable of communicating with is cash registers.

If Apple were to introduce NFC in their mobile devices it would bring them into competition with the likes of VISA & Mastercard as a credit payment provider. According to the report, Americans spend $6.2 trillion, yes trillion, each year on goods and services.

Because of the iPhone’s popularity, it could become the perfect credit card killer.

Richard Doherty, directory of consultancy firm Envisioneering stated in the Bloomberg post that "Apple is considering starting a mobile payment service as early as mid-2011. It would revamp iTunes, a service that lets consumers buy digital movies and music, so it would hold not only users’ credit-card account information but also loyalty credits and points. Using the service, customers could walk into a store or restaurant and make payments straight from an iPad or iPhone. They could also receive loyalty rewards and credits for purchases, such as when referring a friend."

Microsoft Money: Perfume Edition

A Microsoft exec wants the world to smell of dollars and has created his own fragrance to achieve his dream.

Patrick McCarthy, a vice president of sales at Microsoft, has produced a new fragrance aptly named “Money”. The Microsoft exec took a break from the company to create His Money Cologne and Her Money Eau de Parfum. The fragrance makes the wearer smell of dollars.

“I really feel that people who wear this will feel more confident,” McCarthy told AOL News. “I got the idea after reading a story about a Japanese study that showed a significant increase in worker productivity when the smell of money was pumped through vents into factories.”

This perfume comes packed in real shredded US dollar bills. The bottles of His Money or Her Money both retail for $35 each and are available immediately. “We have had quite a bit of positive customer feedback. I’d like to think that people will use it as part of our economic recovery,” said McCarthy.

European Union names Windows Vista as one of the best net filtering tools

Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system has been named as one of the best internet filtering tools for the online protection of children.

The European Union named Vista as the third best filtering tool for over 10 year olds in a recent study commissioned through the “Safer Internet Programme” in Europe. The study benchmarked the main functionalities, effectiveness and usability of most currently used filtering software from a technical and ‘fit -for-purpose’ point of view, without any commercial or profit related concern. The study noted that 84% of the software programs tested enable parents to block access to certain websites. However, they were less effective against social networking sites such as Facebook and online blogs. The EU also criticized the lack of software to filter content on mobile devices. ”Only a few products on the market are able to filter web content accessed via mobile phones or game consoles, at a time when one child out of four in Europe goes online in this way.”

The EU tested blocking scenarios of streaming, P2P, FTP, IRC, Skype, MSN and email. 26 different parental control tools for PCs, 3 for games consoles and 2 for mobile phones were tested against various scenarios. The study found that the existing software is good at filtering adult online content, but there is still at least a 20% chance that sites with unsuitable material for children and especially those encouraging youngsters to self harm (sites promoting anorexia, suicide or self-mutilation) could pass through their filters.

Microsoft has experienced a turbulent time with the European Union over the years. The European Commission ordered Microsoft to pay $794 million in fines and product a version of Windows without Windows Media Player in March 2004 following years of complaints from competitors. Microsoft fought the judgement and eventually bowed to pressure from the EU by announcing Windows XP Home Edition N in March, 2005. The new rules also impacted Windows Vista and Microsoft was forced to create separate versions of Windows Vista in accordance with EU sanctions brought against the company for violating anti-trust laws.

Razer Switchblade™ - A Revolution in PC Gaming

PC gaming has always been restricted to powerful gaming environment of a desktop. Never has anyone been able to replicate the usability of a mouse and keyboard interface on the go. It consists of an ultra sensitive multi-touch screen with an tactile adaptive keyboard. The keyboard adapts and changes automatically with the games being played. It is based on Intel Atom platform. It configures itself to suit the control system of game.



Razer Switchblade concept focusing on enhancing PC gaming on a handheld device. The dynamic keyboard and the multi touch interface are the linchpins that give this portable gaming device the ability to play on the go without sacrificing precision and control. You can see more at razerzone.com/switchblade.

Google's global, online science fair kicks off with a bang

NEW YORK CITY—The Google Science Fair is a bit different from the science fairs of yesteryear. For one thing, it's open to students around the world, whose entries will be submitted online as videos or slide shows. And the prizes are a tad snazzier than a blue ribbon.

The Science Fair kicked off with a launch event at Google's offices here on January 11. The winner of the contest, which is open to entrants age 13 to 18, will receive, among other goodies, a $50,000 scholarship, a 10-day trip to the Galápagos Islands (where Charles Darwin did some of his most important fieldwork) and a virtual internship at Lego or a three-day site visit to CERN, Google or Scientific American.

Entries to the science fair can be submitted until April 4. After multiple rounds of judging to winnow the field down to semifinalists and then finalists, the winner of the contest—and all the prizes that entails—will be announced in July.

Oracle GoldenGate - A solution for real-time data integration and continuous data availability

Most businesses now depend heavily on the availability of their Information and most critical business processes are IT based. Business Continuity is the ability to continue business under any circumstances and is an important requirement for most modern companies. So the main requirements in today's businesses are High Availability and Disaster Recovery of information.

Oracle GoldenGate enables high availability and disaster tolerance with core functionality that supports real-time data integration with minimal overhead and ensuring scalability. With this feature business-critical applications such as ticket booking, online banking and online shopping can continue to operate without any hurdles. Oracle GoldenGate allows real-time data movement between similar and heterogeneous source and target thereby enabling real-time BI solutions, zero downtime system upgrades, multi-directional data synchronization for distributed systems, disaster recovery and migrations between heterogeneous databases, OS platforms and Servers.

Main advantages of Oracle GoldenGate include:

* High Performance: Data can be moved with sub-second latency. Performance impact on source system and the network is minimized by capturing only the data that has been committed from transaction logs.
* Reliability: Transaction integrity is maintained while moving data from source to target using check-pointing mechanism. Using this, in case of network outages or interruptions data movement is resumed from the check-points. These features ensures data integrity which otherwise can severely impact business operations.
* Heterogeneity: Oracle Golden Gate supports a variety of common, open source and legacy databases on most platforms. It can be deployed unidirectional or bidirectional in multiple topologies. GoldenGate also provides the flexibility to move data between like-to-like and heterogeneous systems.

Oracle GoldenGate supports data integration between many common databases including:

* Oracle Database
* IBM DB2
* MySQL
* Microsoft SQL Server
* Teradata
* Sybase
* Enscribe
* SQL/MX

The Operating Systems that are supported by Oracle GoldenGate include:

* HP Nonstop
* AIX
* RedHat AS
* Solaris
* z/OS
* Windows
* HP-UX
* Oracle Linux

With the above features and its support to a vast range of databases and platforms Oracle GoldenGate can be considered a best-in-class solution to enable real-time data integration and continuous data availability.

The Motion Tech Behind Kinect

Video game controllers, as well as the consoles they’re used with, have come a long way since the basic two-button style of the Nintendo from the 1980s. As the years passed, more and more buttons were added to accommodate increasingly complex games. And in 2006, Nintendo added a revolutionary feature—motion control—to the controller for its new console, the Wii. The technology lets users move characters, called avatars, by pointing the remote control at the screen and moving it in any direction.

Last November, Microsoft took controllers to a totally new level by rethinking what—or who—a controller is. In its new Kinect, a Web cam–style add-on for its Xbox 360 console, the player himself (or herself) has been turned into the controller. Relying on a variety of technologies, including a 3-D camera, depth sensors, and real-time motion tracking, Kinect lets users control their on-screen avatars simply by moving their bodies.

Kinect wouldn’t have been possible without the help of IEEE Fellow Andrew Blake and his team at Microsoft Research Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, Microsoft’s flagship research lab in Europe. Blake is the managing director there. The lab came up with the breakthrough that lets Kinect track a person without the person having to wear sensors—something researchers in machine learning had been working on for two decades. Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence that focuses on algorithms that allow computers to mimic human behavior based on empirical data.

TEAM EFFORTS
Microsoft’s Xbox group in Redmond, Wash., which had been developing Kinect for several years, enlisted Blake’s help in 2008. Redmond had come up with a rough prototype for tracking a player in real time, but the system had encountered problems. It relied on a computer graphics program to construct an avatar, which the program would then constantly adjust to match images of the player taken by Kinect’s 3-D Web camera as he or she moved.

But the method had flaws. The system would lose track of a person after a short time, could only track someone who was about the same size (relative in terms of scale) and shape as the avatar and couldn’t process rapid movements. Blake and his researchers were given the job of fixing it.

The answer was found in machine learning. “The Xbox team had used a computer graphics approach, but they didn’t know about machine learning,” notes Blake. “The researchers at our lab are expert in this area.”

Blake himself had been working for years on real-time motion tracking techniques using machine learning. He and Microsoft researcher Kentaro Toyama published a paper in 2001, “Probabilistic Tracking in a Metric Space,” describing a novel approach that assigned a probabilistic likelihood that each movement would lead to another specific type of movement. This data was fed into a computer program that automatically calculated the most likely next move. This was a breakthrough for machine learning, but it alone wasn’t enough to fix Kinect.

“We still had a long way to go in developing something that would work reliably,” Blake says.

MACHINE LEARNING BREAKTHROUGH
Jamie Shotton, a Cambridge researcher, proposed a solution. He suggested teaching the machine learning system to distinguish one part of a person’s body from another.

“I have to say that when he first proposed it, I never thought it would work,” Blake says. But Shotton had worked a lot with computer recognition. For his Ph.D. thesis, he trained a computer to differentiate cows, grass, and other elements from a photo taken in the countryside by studying it pixel by pixel. Says Blake, “This method was instinctive to him, so I told Shotton to try it.”

It only took about three months for Shotton to demonstrate that his method would work. Over the next few months, Blake’s team collaborated with the Xbox group’s engineers in an extensive machine learning project. The machine learning system was “taught” to recognize people in all shapes and sizes and in many different poses. To do this, the researchers uploaded more than a million images of different people in different positions. To teach the system how to recognize body parts, the team used a computer graphics algorithm to render color-coded images representing the different body parts. They eventually created a machine learning algorithm that could analyze each pixel in an image and determine which limb it was.

Kinect’s 3-D camera, developed by the Xbox team, was crucial to the solution, according to Blake. In his group’s previous work on real-time motion capture, an ordinary Web cam was used. “It was a heavy load to put on a computer because it could not easily separate an object or person from the background,” Blake says. “The 3-D camera relieved that load.”

“It made the machine learning system capable of recognizing depth,” he continues. This meant that it could better recognize body parts, as well as track people both close to and far from the camera.

When a player steps in front of the 3-D camera, Kinect automatically begins to match up the image of the person—pixel by pixel—with one of the million or so images it has studied. Kinect matches up a player’s limbs on each succeeding frame from the camera so that it doesn’t lose track, and it doesn’t matter how rapidly the player moves. Kinect was also taught to recognize more than one person, making two-player games possible.

“What we did was really quite revolutionary,” Blake says. “It took a lot of collaboration between our group and the Xbox engineers to make this happen. Even three or four years ago you could only dream about something like Kinect.”

Games that have been developed for Kinect include a variety of dance, exercise, and sports games, such as bowling, volleyball, and running. And with more than 2.5 million Kinects sold since launch, Blake is excited about the future. “I think we are pushing the boundaries of gaming and broadening its appeal,” he says. “Even people who may not consider themselves gamers can have a good time playing Kinect.”

Source: IEEE The Institute